


who's gonna drive you home tonight?

by whiteteethniall



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Aro - Freeform, Aromantic, Asexual, Kid Fic, Multichapter, OT5 Friendship, Other, ace - Freeform, dystopia au, no graphic depictions but most people are dead, not the major characters though, to some extent there are kids they are parented yep, warnings for lots of death mentions
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-24
Updated: 2015-01-24
Packaged: 2018-03-08 20:50:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3223022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiteteethniall/pseuds/whiteteethniall
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“The right to life”, that’s what they used to call it; the UN Declaration had been plastered to the wall of the geography classroom in secondary school. People could argue for days over what it meant, over what was a ‘life’, over whether it applied to foetuses or the terminally ill. That was irrelevant now. Life was a privilege.</p>
<p>Dystopia!AU that finds Zayn struggling to ensure the survival of three children after humanity's desiccation, and four boys who share with Zayn one specific feature helping him in his quest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	who's gonna drive you home tonight?

**Author's Note:**

> Both plot and some literary devices were inspired by Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake series. Margaret, on the very slim chance that you read this, I am forever in your debt!
> 
> I've taken liberties with the science of some aspects; please suspend your belief if necessary.
> 
> Title from Drive by The Cars, though The Script's cover is what I had in mind for this fic :-)

The first beam of morning light landed on Zayn’s face, making his thick lashes flutter. With a grimace and a groan, he rolled off his bed, feet making contact too quickly with the linoleum beneath. _That’s what you get for making a bed of two cots_ , he thought with an internal sigh – cursing his sleeping arrangements was a daily ritual now.

 

Still, he was lucky to have sleeping arrangements, to be waking up every morning to sunlight. “The right to life”, that’s what they used to call it; the UN Declaration had been plastered to the wall of the geography classroom in secondary school. People could argue for days over what it meant, over what was a ‘life’, over whether it applied to foetuses or the terminally ill. That was irrelevant now. Life was a privilege.

 

Also a privilege was peace, it seemed, for soon enough one of Zayn’s charges began to call out for him grumpily. Someone needed breakfast – would it be toddler formula today? Or mashed-up beans from a tin? _Now that’s what it means to be living_.

 

* * *

 

 

Zayn’s first time in that room had been decidedly less glamorous. His first day of a proper, grown-up job and he was finding the emergency pants for an over-excited three-year-old.

 

“So, do you like Spiderman?” he’d asked tentatively, gesturing to the pattern of characters around the pants as a way of an ice-breaker. The boy had only pouted. Maybe it was best not to try befriending someone when their arse was covered in their own shit. Then again, he could’ve just been a Batman guy. Zayn never found out.

 

The boy, rambunctious as ever in his clean attire, had ran off into the main playroom as soon as Zayn had set him down. The newly-qualified childcare teacher couldn’t help but marvel at the energy of the children, or their lack of shame (if the door-less toilet cubicles were anything to go by). He had been smiling and shaking his head when he returned to the playground outside to supervise the youngsters with Ms Karen, a senior teacher at the centre.

 

Zayn had warmed to Ms Karen as soon as he met her; she was strong without being steely, the kind of person you’d want to mother your children from 9 to 3, three days a week. Zayn had a feeling that she’d vouched for him in the recruitment process. In the final round, it had been down to himself and a peppy white girl. He knew he wasn’t the stereotypical childcare worker, but he was patient and diligent, and – as he’d heard Ms Karen point out to another staff member – a Pakistani Muslim teacher was a great asset in such a multicultural part of London.

 

In the playground that day, Ms Karen had smiled at him serenely, Spiderman-undies whizzing past her feet. “Do you want children, Zayn? I know you’re a bit young, but you clearly are passionate about their upbringing,”

 

Zayn remembers trying to match her demeanour, despite the invisible weight of her question. “I’d love to,” he had almost mumbled, before making himself more audible. “I just don’t have anyone to have them with.”

 

Ms Karen had smiled wider at that comment. “A good-looking young man like you will find someone!” she’d exclaimed, in what was clearly meant to be reassurance. “All in good time,”

 

Zayn had nodded and returned his gaze to the playing children.

 

* * *

 

 

It’d been a couple of months since he’d seen Spiderman-undies (or Keigo, as his mother called him). Zayn hoped he was still alive, but he was doubtful. Kids survived initially, but there weren’t many prospects for survival when you were three years old and your parents were dead.

 

The kids. Right. Stepping into the main room, his suspicions were confirmed. Three pairs of eyes fixed on him from three children, all sitting up on their naptime mattresses, all still slightly confused about their whereabouts. “Morning, kids,” rasped Zayn in his six a.m. voice.

 

“Good morning, Mr Zayn,” his charges replied in perfect singsong, a habit they were yet to lose. “Is it time for breakfast, Mr Zayn?” queried Mischa, the youngest of the children, her head tilting like a puppy. It was her who’d called out for him at the first sign of dawn (and who had likely woken the others).

 

“Sure, Mischa. Why don’t you kids sit up at the table while I make it?”

 

The three of them obliged, moving to sit at the small activities table across from their beds. Their ‘family’ had long abandoned the longer table at the other end of the room, once used for fruit time and morning tea. It was too big for four people; too lonely, too painful.

 

While Karim enlightened his friends with the story of his latest dream, Zayn moved to the small kitchen to scrounge for breakfast. Worry filled his chest as he took stock of what remained – which was, to put it bluntly, not much. He’d stocked up when things had started looking scary, when three single parents of his students had asked him to mind their children while they tried to find a safe haven in the country. The three parents hadn’t stuck together, of course – in those times, it was safer to be alone. They’d left him some supplies for the children, and Zayn had raided local shops, but everything (especially the non-perishables) was already pretty picked-over.

 

A tin of corn remained in one cupboard; he’d had some idea of saving it, being almost a treat compared to kidney beans, but he decided today would be the day to eat it. Why not, really? Why save things when every day could be the last?

 

He used water he’d boiled last night to make up some toddler formula in the microwave and put the kettle on to make himself a weak coffee with the remaining granules. They’d done well to get this far, he knew. The kindergarten had only installed a generator the winter before, following concerns about particularly bad snowstorms; without it, they’d have no heat or running water now. He was lucky he’d loved zombie movies as a kid, really. He didn’t know if this was the apocalypse, but if not, it was pretty damn close. Sometimes he couldn’t get to sleep at night, thinking that he and the three in his care could be the last people left on the planet. Of course, that was very unlikely. There’d be more kids, if they could survive, and people in isolated areas, maybe in England, maybe not. Maybe more people like him. Still, he felt the burden of protecting these kids, raising them to live in this new society, if you could call it that.

 

Corn doled out into plastic bowls and formula heated, he served breakfast to the eager youngsters. _Maybe I’m the superhero now_ , he thought.

 

* * *

 

 

He’d thought it was a hoax, at first. How could you not, when it was splayed across social media like that? A dark dramatic video, men in masks – Christian bioterrorists, it later emerged – stating in droning, distorted voices that the Rapture wasn’t going to happen on its own. That someone needed to kick it along. That they’d launched simultaneous attacks on the world’s water supplies. Farcical, really. A prank, a joke, an elaborate meme.

 

But then people started dying.

 

Nightclubs were full of the dead. Revellers would collapse, never to be roused. Spontaneous aneurysms, the autopsies said, when autopsies were still being conducted. Pretty soon the causes of death became obvious, and not long after that, there was no one left to carry them out. Houses, from what he’d heard, started to look like scenes from Pompeii – people lying in pairs, holding each other or kissing, a moment of tenderness turned into a time bomb. Word from America’s CDC had been broadcast within a few days of the first mass casualties: the poison used by the terrorists was targeting the centres in the brain responsible for romantic and sexual attraction. One moment of lust or longing and you were dead.

 

Pretty soon the singletons were fleeing the cities, looking for isolation, but many didn’t get far. The UK was pretty small, after all. Two people could bump into each other while stopping for supplies and find their lives shut down in an instant. Not Zayn, though. It was funny how the thing he’d detested his whole life had ended up saving it.

 

With guys his age collapsing left, right and centre, the few remaining parents had figured out pretty quickly that Zayn was ‘immune’ (as they’d tactfully put it) from the death sentence that awaited most adults. In their brief pick-up and drop-off times (carefully co-ordinated as to avoid meeting any other parents), they’d discussed the possibility of leaving their children with him. At first, Zayn had been overwhelmed by the prospect – not only was it a far cry from his first days at the centre, when a select few parents had been suspicious of a young guy “of Middle-Eastern appearance” caring for their children, but he was only 22! He was accustomed to caring for kids for a short amount of time, but he wasn’t a father. The thought of raising a kid almost as his own for an indefinite amount of time was, quite frankly, terrifying. But he knew he had to do it. He had a duty of care to Mischa, Karim and Dominique, after all. He just hoped he wouldn’t fail them.

 

* * *

 

 

Sated and content, the three children resumed yesterday’s Peppa-Pig-Meets-Thomas-The-Tank-Engine adventure on the play mat in the corner. Zayn cleaned their bowls, favouring baby wipes over fresh water (it wouldn’t pass a health inspection but it’d do in the circumstances). He decided it was time he checked the generator; he tried his best to keep track of the passing of days, but he couldn’t be sure how long it’d been since he’d checked the fuel levels. Rounding the corner of the building, he racked his brains for possible stockists, should the fuel be almost gone, but found none. It was with a sinking heart that he checked the generator and found his fears confirmed. They had but a few days of power left – and then what? No running water, no heat, no light – and soon to be no food, considering the state of the cupboards. He couldn’t raise kids like that.

 

_We could always move._ Ever since he’d taken over as foster dad, he’d dreamt of leaving London and finding a cottage somewhere with a vegetable garden and a little creek. They could be self-sustaining there, and free of the dangers of the city (not that one had appeared thus far, but they’d lose their alarm system should the power go out, and this part of London – like all parts – had its underbelly). Maybe it was time, then. Maybe it was time he packed up the kids and headed out on a road trip, of sorts.

 

Of course, he couldn’t actually drive a car. He’d never got around to learning, and there was no point wasting money on petrol when the Metro and buses gave you the whole of London at your doorstep. If his life depended on it, he could probably get his way around the (now-abandoned) streets, but even his mum had struggled to focus with several kids in the car. For him, that was out of the picture.

 

So, lacking a horse and carriage (though perhaps they’d swing by Buckinham Palace, see if Liz had one spare), they were going to have to walk. This presented its own problems, though. Three-year-olds couldn’t get very far by any method without complaining. These kids in particular hadn’t been anywhere but the centre and its playground for two months and Zayn wouldn’t put it past them to escape. He needed child leashes, or a pram for triplets, or…

 

He was almost embarrassed that he hadn’t thought of it sooner, really. _The trolley_. Its steel bars might as well have been silver, considering how highly Zayn thought of the supermarket essential. He’d pilfered it from Sainsbury’s for transporting tinned food in large volumes; now it lived here, near the generator, in an area out-of-bounds for the kids.

 

Zayn started stacking it full of necessities right away, like some kind of end-of-the-world Subway footlong. A big container of water, the remaining tin of formula, whatever tins of food were left in a plastic tub once used to house Duplo blocks. On top went the padding – the kids’ clothes, arranged spread out flat to form a sort of mattress, with blankets as the final layer and pillows for the kids to sit on.

 

Zayn stood back to admire his handiwork. _That thing is going to be bloody heavy_ , he thought. He could manage, though. He was skinny, but his wiry build had proven itself very capable in the time since everything went to shit. He could push around heaps of tinned food – why not three children and all their worldly possessions?

 

His biggest concern was finding somewhere to refill their water and get some heat in time. They could camp out and make do for a few days, but then what? Still, with a choice between staying put and starving or freezing or dehydrating to death, or taking a chance and making a run for it, he’d have to choose the latter.

 

And so Zayn rallied the troops, so to speak; each holding a toy train carriage, the terrific threesome boarded their trolley, determined expressions on their tiny faces. Zayn had been careful to protect them from the devastation of the past few months, but he knew it had affected them. He could see it in the shadow that formed across their eyes whenever a storybook mentioned mothers and fathers, and in the way that their block constructions often morbidly centred around hospitals. He was worried about what they would see on the streets of London; who was there to collect the dead?

 

His worries were assuaged as they left the childcare centre behind and headed west. Zayn planned to walk through the city, where there were the most opportunities for shelter and stocking up on food. Once he was a bit more confident and they’d ironed out the kinks in their transport method, he’d head north. Probably. His plan was shaky, but at least the streets were clear. Here and there lay mounds that Zayn suspected were bodies, but they were shrouded in sheets or tarpaulins, a last nod to burial rites.

 

Zayn could only imagine what it had been like for the people who’d thrown those coverings, running out into the street before ducking back inside, forever fearing their own emotions. It was a burden he’d avoided, though none had escaped the ‘Rapture’ without scars.

 

* * *

 

 

He’d been at work when he’d got the phone call. It was only a day after the terrorists’ video had gone viral; there had been widespread reports of people collapsing and dying, but little had been confirmed. Zayn had sent quick ‘stay safe x’ texts to his family back in Bradford and to his roommate, Niall, who was in Derby for a footie game. Otherwise, life seemed eerily normal – until he picked up his phone and heard his mother sob.

 

“It’s Doniya. She was at work, just talking to her boss, everything was normal, and then…” Strangled tears echoed through the phone’s speaker, cutting into Zayn like a knife. He didn’t need to hear the rest of the sentence; the answer was on the radio that morning and in the concerned whispers of his superiors down the hall.

 

“D’you want me to come home, Mum? They don’t need me here, I can come help out…”   
“No,” Trisha cut him off, with an unusual ferocity. “You stay in London. I don’t want you back here when… when all this is happening. I don’t want to put you at risk.”

 

Zayn couldn’t help but notice the break in her voice on the last word. His mum had always been strong, though, and she pulled herself together to bid him goodbye.

 

“Your father gets back from Glasgow this afternoon. He and I can handle this, Zayn. All will be alright, insha’Allah,” then silence.

 

That was the last he’d heard from any of his family. Once the cause of the deaths was discovered, it was really no surprise that they had gone so quickly. The moment his father had walked through the door, he and his mum would’ve felt those deadly yearnings. His younger sisters were teenagers; they fell in love every second day with a boy on the bus or in the form above. They were sitting ducks while he selfishly lived on. At least caring for the kindergarten children gave him purpose and ebbed away at his survivor’s guilt as much as one could hope. They were his priority now.

 

* * *

 

 

All day, Zayn and his precious cargo trooped through inner suburbia. They ate lunch in the shade of a large oak tree behind a Tesco’s, where he’d found some palatable quinoa snackbars abandoned in the health food aisle and, incredibly, some chocolate. It kept the kids in good spirits as they trudged on; they didn’t seem to mind that Zayn had to pause at every roundabout, writing his map as he went.

 

Night came fast, but the quartet was safe in an abandoned council office. Too boring to ransack, there were still comfortable couches in the lobby to double as beds and plates in the kitchen, off which Zayn and the kids ate chickpeas and cold vegetarian nutmeat. He was surprised at their willingness to plough into such an odd meal, especially considering that Mischa wouldn’t eat carrots when Zayn had first started working at the centre. It wasn’t just that they had resigned themselves to their new situation and entered a forced maturity. It was like they _enjoyed_ the challenge. They were mature for their age, but this was still an adventure to them. Zayn just hoped he could make the dream last.

 

He regretted that thought by next midday. As an unexpected storm cloud loomed overhead, Zayn was sure that he’d jinxed himself. They had made it as far as Canary Wharf, where he’d hoped some of the ritzy apartment buildings would open themselves to him and the kids so that they could shelter in a large, steel lobby. No such luck. Every rotating door was fixed in position. It was almost eerie, seeing these towering tombs of London’s high-fliers, locked up as tightly as Tutankhamen’s pyramid.

 

Zayn’s heart started to race as he glanced again at the sky above. Rain wasn’t so scary when you had a place to dry off afterwards. Three sopping children and a drenched adult did not a happy combination make. He was seriously starting to consider sheltering in a bin when –

 

“Hey! Down there!”

 

A man’s voice, echoing down from a balcony. Zayn couldn’t see much of him from where he stood, but the shouter had short hair and a strong build. In another time, Zayn would’ve taken his chances with the rain rather than ask to join a stranger in his building, especially with three kids in tow. Post-devastation, however, anyone still living had to be safe. Zayn wasted barely a second contemplating before yelling back: “Can you help us?”

 

“I’ll let you in! One second!” the man boomed in response. After an agonising couple of minutes, the glass doors nearest to Zayn opened up and the man ushered them in.

 

On closer inspection, he was not far from Zayn’s age. His head was somewhat beefy, but he offered a kind smile that reached his eyes and a strong hand to shake.

 

“I’m Liam, nice to meet you, mate,”

 

“Zayn,” he replied, before gesturing to the trolley. “These scallywags are Karim, Mischa and Dominique”

 

“’Ow do you do,” Liam nodded. The children didn’t reply, instead staring at the newcomer with wide eyes.

 

Liam looked over their supplies in deliberation, before turning to Zayn. “I’ll tell you what,” he proposed. “I’ll take the trolley up the stairs, if you handle the kids, yeah?”

 

Zayn nodded and hoisted each child out of the vehicle. Grabbing Karim and Dominque’s hands and nodding at Mischa to walk in front of him, he crossed the lobby to the glistening staircase.

Thunder cracking in the background, the four climbed, out of the storm and out of the loneliness.


End file.
